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Santa Clara County supervisorial candidates square off on immigration, housing

Three candidates running for a seat on Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors in 2020 squared off in a debate Saturday in Milpitas — the first event to kick off the campaign season.

The four candidates hoping to replace District 3 Supervisor Dave Cortese are San Jose Councilmember Magdalena Carrasco, patent attorney and former Sunnyvale Councilmember Otto Lee, Milpitas Mayor Richard Tran and businessman John Leyba.

Tran didn’t attend the debate because he was on air national guard duty.

The candidates were questioned on four topic areas: Public health, immigration, housing and education. The first few questions, from moderator Aditya Ullal, a Stanford University student focused on tackling the South Bay’s public health concerns, asked candidates how they’ll address rising health care costs, and how the candidates can help insure more people with health insurance.

The candidates agreed that the county should spend more money on outreach efforts and encourage partnerships with health clinics to provide insurance to underserved communities.

The debate got heated when the topic of immigration hit the floor. A question focused on the murder of Bambi Larson, a San Jose resident who was killed in her home by an undocumented immigrant, asked candidates how they’ll address crime to “make the public feel safe again.”

Lee, an immigrant from Hong Kong, said he supports the county’s decision to revisit the existing sanctuary city policy because “criminals should not be thrown into the community.”

Leyba echoed that sentiment, saying that he supports “whatever it takes” at the county level to maximize safety.

“We can’t have a situation where those vulnerable communities can be subject to violent predators,” added Leyba.

Carrasco, a Latina, strongly disagreed, saying that while the incident was “very polarizing” and “unfortunate,” it didn’t have much to do with immigration.

“This is frustrating, we’re speaking of an immigrant issue when we should be dealing with mental health, drug addiction, homelessness and public safety,” said Carrasco. “It’s turned into an issue on immigration that’s ripping apart the city of San Jose at the seams.“

But the three contenders agreed on ICE — an agency that the trio said has used “unethical” law enforcement tactics. Carrasco focused on ICE “separating children from their parents at the border that will never be reunited.”

“The idea of a sanctuary city is offering undocumented immigrants the ability to live safely in a community,” added Lee. “There’s no reason why a hospital or school is calling ICE.”

Housing was another hot topic on Saturday as Santa Clara County copes with a homelessness and housing crisis. As the region continues to boom economically, the gap between the poor and the rich widens in Silicon Valley.

The candidates were asked if they would be willing to consider alternative solutions that involve land trusts to solve the housing crisis and if they supported stricter rent control policies and building granny units—secondary housing units on a single plot of land intended to house more people in concentrated spaces.

Carrasco said she supports building more density to tackle the housing crisis, adding that “entire communities are being displaced and gentrified.” But she was not convinced that community land trusts are the answer. Carrasco said she’s confident that enforcing stronger rent control policies and building granny units would help reduce displacement.

Lee and Leyba took different approaches.

“There’s no silver bullet to solve our housing crisis,” said Lee, who thinks that stronger private-public partnerships need to exist in order to solve the housing crunch.

Leyba was open to land trusts and using publicly-owned land, but said that displacement results from “giant market shift.” Leyba said he does not support expanding rent control as it’s an “incentive for disinvestment” and makes builders “skittish” about building in California.

There was little debate on education among the candidates, who all mirrored one another’s answers on how to discourage smoking and preventing teens from using tobacco products, while acknowledging the importance of protecting social programs in schools that provide mental health services to students.

Many attendees had the opportunity to ask the candidates questions on Saturday.

Former Milpitas Councilmember Marsha Grilli, like other audience members, said that housing and homelessness are the most important issues facing the region. While she doesn’t know who she’ll vote for yet, she thinks each of the candidates answered well, despite the one-minute time constraint.

“The forum was excellent and it gave us an opportunity to see the candidates in action,” added Grilli. “I’m really impressed with the quality of the candidates and excited about what their campaigns will look like, and what their platforms are. This will be brand new leadership and we want to see that Milpitas is represented.”

Contact Nadia Lopez at nadia@sanjosespotlight.com or follow @n_llopez on Twitter.

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Comments (18)

KelliMay 07, 2019 at 8:04AM

THE STAMPEDE: Lets see, we have Democrat / Socialist / Activist / Lawyers in the Northern Triangle of South America & Mexico; even as you read this instructing the populations the “benefits” & laws of coming top the USA…..”credible fear.” Then you have a Democrat House saying the crisis is “manufactured” as literally thousands attack our border daily? National Sovereignty is a myth to Democrats. The crisis is manufactured…by the Democrats themselves. Make no mistake about this, Democrats want this to happen and never stop.. They will with hold support allowing as many illegal aliens to enter the country as possible before assisting in border security (if ever).

The current migration at our border is costing U.S taxpayers a Kings ransom. Fleeing persecution? or fleeing for freebies? they sure don’t stay in Mexico when they reach “safety” or ask or offered political asylum in Mexico. Why? because Mexico will give them NOTHING. So they make the long journey to our border, our generous Democrats, and our tax dollars. Notice how many have made the long, difficult, dangerous journey to our country 8-9 months pregnant? Give birth on American soil and the U.S. taxpayers will not only pay for the birth of you’re child but will also give you state government assistance.

TPS / DACA To Democrats/Progressives/Socialists (whats the difference?) programs like Temporary Protective Status (TPS) or Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals (DACA) are permanent programs. There is nothing “temporary or deferred” about these programs to Democrats. These programs are designed to admit refugees (usually from the third world) then Democrats fight to keep them here permanently using the charge of racism, religion, guilt against anyone opposed. Simple formula works great.

THE PRICE: It seems Democrats view U.S. citizens as acceptable collateral damage to their future long range goals of flooding the country with refugees & illegal aliens and having taxpayers paying the cost. Democrat politicians and their voters have put families at risk of being victimized by illegal aliens as in the cases Kate Steinly (nothing done) then, Mollie Tibbetts, (nothing done) Police Cpl. Ronil Singh, (nothing done) now Bambi Larson; butchered in her home, nothing will be done…who’s next? These victims would be alive today if our border was secured. Most of these killers have been deported numerous times. Bambi ‘s killer claimed “amnesty” to get into the country.

Google search “illegal alien crime” or “victims.”

Just a few examples of the more outrageous costs associated with illegal immigration, we will pass this burden on to our children & grand children as has been passed on to us.

* City emergency services Taxpayer pay for every police, fire, paramedic service call for illegal aliens in their city. Taxpayers also pay for all hospital, emergency room treatments, ambulances, medications….everything. Hospital wait times for citizens are negatively impacted.

*Cost of educating illegal aliens is staggering. From K-12 it costs taxpayers on average $122,000 for EACH illegal alien student. This does not include the millions spent on bilingual ED, instructors, special need children & day care. It is estimated nearly 100,000 illegal aliens graduate each year……you do the math. School class size are also negatively impacted by illegal aliens and our students suffer as a result.

*Taxpayers in some states are funding “in state college tuition” discounts for illegal aliens. (AZ voted to terminate this taxpayer expense.) Cost to taxpayers over a billion dollars annually.

*About one in five inmates in federal prison are foreign-born, & more than 90% of those are in the U.S illegally. This does not include local jails and state prisons. *$3Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate, process Illegal aliens in the criminal justice system.

*$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on is spent on food assistance programs such as SNAP, WIC, & taxpayer funded school lunches.

*Every child birth by illegal aliens in the U.S is paid for with tax dollars.In the US, the average cost to have a baby without complications during delivery, is $10,808, which can increase to $30,000 when factoring in care provided before and after pregnancy (July 9, 2018 google.)

Nice copy/paste job. But what does this have to do with the local election? Is your proposal that we simply ignore human rights, and let people starve? You’re full of nonsense, and part of the problem w/ this country. Your family were immigrants once, unless you’re native american, which I doubt you are after reading all that prejudice and hate toward families.

It has nothing to do with the local election. Translation…….you have neither the intelligence nor knowledge to challenge any part of the post. Hate towards families? I would GLADLY accept any 10 refugees from south America for every weak, wimpy white liberal like you we could deport.

Carrasco is part of the problem in San Jose, and will continue to get little to nothing done as a Supervisor, in my opinion. We have to stop letting poor performing council-members move-up the political-chain, as it just keeps the status quo, where it’s talk, talk, talk — but no action or solutions. Plus, why are these candidates talking about national issues, when there is so much to do here in Santa Clara County? Housing is a top priority, and again, Carrasco has gotten nothing done in San Jose, and watching a San Jose council meeting really highlights how ineffective San Jose City Council, Mayor and City Manager are.

-Open Borders. -Sanctuary Cities. -Elimination of ICE -Disarming Americans. -Infanticide. -Voting rights for illegal aliens. -Pack the courts with radical liberal judges (Like the 9th circuit) -Increase refugee’s from the third world. -Illegal aliens allowed to hold public office. -Socialism. -Free Abortions for all (Taxpayer funded) -The green new deal. -End of Electoral College -Free Medicare care for all including non citizens (taxpayer funded) -Raise Minimum Wage -Have adolescents vote -!00% free college for all, including non citizens. (tax payer funded) -Reparations for every race “harmed” by the white man. -Convicts, Terrorists voting. -Susie & Bobby using the same restrooms. -Late term abortions. -Pay check for every person in the US even if they choose not to work.

That’s all ya got? Speaking of ignorance you denying what your hero’s say on a daily basis is pure ignorance on your part….unless your deaf & dumb? the rest of us hear them very clearly clearly.. Didn’t you see the long line of Democrat candidates standing in line to kiss Sharpton’s rear? your heroes LOL

KC has misstated the democratic platform. Democrates do not propose open borders, but do support a nuanced response to those fleeing the chaos in Central America, a chaos caused by actions of our gov’t under the Reagan administraton which backed right-wing dictators whose armies slaughtered many impoverished indigeonus people to protect the rights of American corporate fruit companies.

And then El Salvadorian families and their children fled the war in their country and were resettled as refugees, many of whom settled in Pico Union area of LA where the Crips and the Bloods were fighting for control. War traumatize Salvadorian youth created their own gang out of self-protection which became the Mara Salvatruch or MS-13. Thousands were deported back to El Salvador which was not prepared for US gang culture and was overwhelmed by the numbers. This is a problem that WE created and now people are fleeing the death and crime that marks El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. People are fleeing and coming here not for the welfare (which is pretty minimal for non-citizens – unless you are Cuban), but because they want to work to support their families and live safely. And, there are jobs here waiting to be filled.

It is just so easy to accuse desperate people of not being poor enough, of being “bad hombres,” when one does not really know the background history nor anyone personally affected. What happened to Bambi Larsen is tragic, but it was caused by someone mentally ill who was also an immigrant. We lack adequate mental health care in this country so too many people self-medicate and cannot support themselves. Agnews was closed and the promised local community care for severaly mentally ill people was never funded. All of these problems have been decades in the making and are now negatively affecting us.

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